While visiting Arkansas' Crater of Diamonds State Park on Saturday, Oct. 19, a 14-year-old girl made a lucky discovery in the form of a 3.85-carat diamond, The Associated Press reports.
Tana Clymer of Oklahoma City was digging through the dirt for roughly two hours when she unearthed the tear-dropped shaped canary gem about the size of a jellybean on the surface of the search field.
"This canary diamond is very similar to the gem-quality, 4.21-carat canary diamond found at the Crater of Diamonds by Oklahoma State Trooper Marvin Culver of Nowata, Oklahoma, on March 12, 2006, a gem he named the Okie Dokie Diamond," Bill Henderson, assistant park superintendent, told the AP on Sunday.
The Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, Ark. is the only diamond-producing site in the U.S. that is open to the public. According to the Oklahoman, the park includes a 37-acre area where visitors can hunt for diamonds and precious stones, though few found are of the same quality as the one Clymer found, as Joan Ellison, a spokeswoman for Arkansas State Parks, told the local newspaper.
Park officials told the AP that Clymer named the diamond "God's Jewel."
"At first I thought it was a marble until I laid it in my hand," Clymer said to the Oklahoman. "Then, I knew it was something." She then poked it with a stick and screamed at her mother, Amanda Giordano, that she'd found something.
"She screamed at me, 'Mama, mama I found something.'" Giordano recalled of what Clymer originally thought was some kind of wrapper.
Clymer's is the 396th diamond found so year this year in southern Arkansas. Her mother said that she had been begging her husband to take the family to the park for years, and they finally settled on a trip during fall break after reading about a boy finding a 5.15-carat diamong in July.
Henderson explained to the AP that heavy rainfall often pushes the dirt away and leaves the diamonds exposed for easier finding.
"Tana told me that she was so excited, she couldn't sleep last night," Henderson said. "She's either going to keep the diamond for a ring, or, if it's worth a lot, she'll want that for college."
Other gems discovered in the park include "amethyst, garnet, peridot, jasper, agate, calcite, barite, and quartz."
Click here to see a photo of the 3.85-carat diamond discovered by the 14-year-old teen at the Arkansas state park.
